Beginning Credits Play Over: Alan Silvestri - Transylvania 1887
FADE IN:
A storm‑torn valley.
Mist coils through dead trees like breath from unseen lungs.
The wind carries whispers — not words, but names.
Barovia stretches below, its rivers black and slow, its mountains crowned with ruin.
Ahead, three faint lights flicker in the fog — distant, spectral, calling.
The camera glides toward them:
one crimson, one silver, one emerald.
Each pulse like a heartbeat buried in the earth.
TITLE CARD:
THE THREE FANES — carved in runic script, glowing faintly as if written in blood and moonlight.
The glow trembles.
The wind falters.
Silence descends.
❄️ CHARACTER INTRODUCTIONS — THE LAND REMEMBERS
(Each name appears as the camera passes them)
Fleetwood (Richard Armitage) — on a ridge above the valley, cloak snapping in the wind. He watches lightning crawl across the horizon, tracing the shape of the first Fane. His hand rests on the pommel of his sword, eyes narrowed.
He whispers, “It’s waking.”
Clarion (Gwendoline Christie) — kneeling beside a half‑buried altar.
Her lantern burns with silver flame, bending toward the east.
She touches the stone, and frost melts beneath her fingers.
A prayer escapes her lips — half hope, half warning.
Greegan (Matt Ryan) — trudging through a ravine where the fog moves against the wind. His compass spins, then locks toward a fissure glowing faintly green. He mutters, “The earth’s bleeding again,” and presses on.
Felonious (Ben Whishaw) — beneath a shattered arch, studying runes carved in bone.
The parchment in his hands hums softly.
He looks up — the air ripples, and for a moment, the stars blink out.
He smiles, uneasy. “They’re listening.”
Silverleaf (Tatyana Maslany) — standing in a grove of petrified trees.
Her bow is drawn, arrow nocked, eyes fixed on a shadow that moves like smoke.
Amber motes drift from her breath.
She whispers, “The forest remembers.”
Ireena (Tomasin McKenzie) — at the edge of a frozen lake.
The lavender blade glows faintly at her side.
She gazes into the reflection — three lights shimmer beneath the ice.
Her voice is steady: “We find them. Or Barovia dies.”
Arabelle (Cailee Spaeny) — seated in the snow, eyes closed, hands pressed to the ground. Her voice is a whisper carried by the wind:
“The Fanes are dreaming. Don’t wake them angry.”
Ezmerelda (Morena Baccarin) — sharpening her blade beside a dying fire.
The flames flare crimson, then fade to ash.
She smirks. “Guess we’re heading into another nightmare.”
🏔️ FINAL SHOT — THE VALLEY BREATHES
The storm parts for a heartbeat.
Three distant peaks glow — red, silver, green — each pulsing like a wound.
The camera pushes forward, the wind rising again.
A whisper curls through the air — ancient, hungry, patient.
FADE OUT.
With:
Javier Bardem as Luvash
Barry Keoghan as Alexi
Raul Esparza as Arrigal
Cliff Curtis as Arturi Radanavich
COLD OPEN BEGINS:
The fires gutter low, their last embers clinging to life like stubborn ghosts.
Smoke coils upward into the thinning mist, carrying with it the scent of ash, blood, and something newly broken — or newly mended.
🌑 Vallaki — Vistani Camp, After the Battle
Background Music: Fabomusic - Vistani Campfire
EXT. CAMP CENTER — NIGHT
The vampire spawn lie scattered in drifting piles of gray, their forms already dissolving into the soil of Barovia.
The camp exhales — a long, trembling breath — as though the land itself has been holding its lungs tight.
From the edge of the clearing, Arabelle steps forward.
Her cloak is torn.
Her boots are caked in swamp‑mud and soot.
But her eyes — bright, fierce, unbowed — cut through the smoke like twin lanterns.
Luvash turns at the sound of her steps.
His breath catches.
His face crumples.
LUVASH (softly): “Arabelle…”
He rushes to her, arms outstretched, and she meets him halfway.
Their embrace is tight, trembling, wordless — the kind of reunion that feels stolen from fate.
When he pulls back, his hands rest on her shoulders as though anchoring himself to the world.
LUVASH (CONT’D): “I feared for you. I feared I’d never see you again.”
Arabelle only smiles — a little wild, a little wicked, wholly herself.
ARABELLE: “Papa, I hexed Baba Lysaga herself.”
A grin flashes across her face, bright as a spark in the dark.
ARABELLE (CONT’D): “Mama would be proud.”
Luvash laughs — but the sound is soft, cracked, carrying the weight of memory.
LUVASH: “Yes. I suppose she would.”
Arabelle tilts her head, mischief returning like a familiar friend.
ARABELLE: “Baba Lysaga’s dead. Does that mean I’m the Witch of Berez now?”
Luvash wipes his eyes, chuckling.
LUVASH; “I can’t think of a better one.”
Behind them, Arrigal approaches, his steps measured, his gaze sharp as a blade.
He nods to the party — to Silverleaf’s smoldering blades, to Clarion’s steady stance, to Felonious’s singed robes and glowing staff.
ARRIGAL: “You answered our summons. You risked much.”
He glances at the scorched ruin of Luvash’s tent.
ARRIGAL (CONT’D): “And you’ve brought the storm with you.”
Luvash steps beside him, arms crossed, voice low.
LUVASH: “We’ve heard rumors. The Count’s brides — dead. The castle — raided.”
His eyes move from Felonious, to Clarion, to Ireena — who still stands haloed in the fading glow of the Sun Sword.
LUVASH (CONT’D): “And the Count himself… visiting his wrath upon the valley.”
Arrigal hisses softly, tension coiling in his shoulders.
ARRIGAL (CONT’D): “I do not wish to know more than I need to.”
He steps closer, voice dropping.
ARRIGAL (CONT’D): “But tell us — are we in danger?”
His gaze flicks to Fleetwood, then to the camp, then back to the party.
ARRIGAL (CONT’D): “Are our people in danger?”
The fire crackles.
The mist stirs.
And the party stands at the edge of truth — the valley watching, the night listening, the Grand Conjunction drawing near.
The battle is over.
The camp breathes again.
But Barovia does not sleep.
The fires have burned themselves down to embers, their glow trembling against the mist that curls at the edges of the camp like a listening spirit.
The air tastes of iron and smoke. The night feels newly hollow.
Felonious stands before Luvash and Arrigal, his robes scorched, his staff faintly aglow with the spectral shimmer of his spirit dragon.
The creature coils in silence, its light pulsing like a heartbeat beneath the ash.
His voice is quiet.
But it carries.
FELONIOUS: “Everyone in this valley is in danger.”
The words fall heavy, like stones into water.
The gathered Vistani shift uneasily, their faces pale in the dying firelight.
FELONIOUS (CONT’D): “If you can leave through the mist — do it.”
He turns to Arabelle, his gaze shadowed by concern.
FELONIOUS (CONT’D): “You should go with them.”
Arabelle steps forward, chin lifted, eyes fierce.
The mist seems to draw back from her.
ARABELLE: “No.”
Her hand rests on her hip, the other on her spell pouch — a gesture of defiance and destiny.
ARABELLE (CONT’D): “The Witch of Berez will join the Order of the Silver Dragon.”
A smile flickers — wild, bright, and utterly Barovian.
ARABELLE (CONT’D): “We’re going to stop the Devil.”
Silence falls.
Even the mist seems to listen.
Felonious nods, solemn and proud.
FELONIOUS: “Then may your fire burn brighter than his shadow.”
He turns to Arrigal, voice low, the spirit dragon’s glow reflecting in his eyes.
FELONIOUS (CONT’D) : “Who were the vampires looking for?”
Arrigal hesitates.
His gaze flicks to Arabelle, then to the scorched tent, then back to Felonious.
He exhales, the sound brittle.
ARRIGAL: “I don’t know. Not exactly.”
He looks at Arabelle again, and something in his expression softens.
ARRIGAL (CONT’D): “But after hearing how she walked unafraid into Baba Lysaga’s lair…”
He swallows.
ARRIGAL (CONT’D): “I owe her an apology.”
He steps forward, voice tight, trembling.
ARRIGAL (CONT’D) : “For trying to sell her to Strahd. It only shows how afraid I was. Still am.”
Arabelle says nothing.
But she places a hand on his arm — just for a moment.
A gesture of forgiveness, or perhaps warning.
Arrigal looks around the camp — at the party, at the mist, at the ruins of what was once safety.
ARRIGAL (CONT’D): “It feels like I’ve walked into the back of an old tale.”
The fire crackles.
The mist stirs.
And the camp stands at the edge of legend — with the Witch of Berez, the Order of the Silver Dragon, and the Devil himself waiting in the pages ahead.
The night folds inward around the wagon circle, the mist thick as breath.
The campfire burns low, its light trembling across faces that have seen too much.
The air hums with the scent of iron and old secrets.
Arrigal leads the party through the wreckage — past the scorched tent, past the stunned Vistani whose eyes still reflect the battle’s fire — toward a wagon unlike the rest. Its wheels are reinforced with blackened iron, its sides carved with sigils that seem to shift when the torchlight touches them. The mist curls around its base like a living thing.
Arrigal unlatches the door.
The hinges groan — a sound like a sigh from the grave.
Background Music shifts: Fabomusic - Ezmerelda
Inside, the air is heavy with the scent of dust and blood.
A pair of iron‑bound chests, their locks gleaming like watchful eyes.
An onyx jewelry box, etched with crescent moons that catch the faintest light.
A rolled‑up rug, its edges frayed, its weave whispering of forgotten halls.
And at the center — a wooden throne, inlaid with gold and studded with stones that glimmer like trapped stars.
Upon the throne sits a man.
His head bowed.
His hair dark, streaked with gray.
Bandages wrap his torso, stained with blood.
More bandages crown his head — a broken halo.
The party freezes.
Clarion steps forward, her mace trembling faintly in her grip.
Felonious’s spirit dragon coils tighter, its glow dimming to a wary pulse.
Ireena gasps — a sound that cuts through the silence like glass.
FLEETWOOD (quietly): “Marek?”
Arrigal shakes his head.
ARRIGAL: “Arturi.”
He steps closer, voice low, reverent.
ARRIGAL (CONT’D): “The ones you sent for are here.”
The man stirs — slowly, painfully — as though rising from a tomb rather than a throne.
The wagon creaks beneath him, wood groaning like an old cathedral under strain.
When he lifts his head, the firelight catches the hollows of his cheeks, the sharpness of his gaze — sunken, yes, but unbroken.
His voice is a rasp dragged across stone.
ARTURI: “You came.”
A cough tears through him — wet, ragged, too close to the grave.
Then, barely, a smile.
ARTURI (CONT’D): “Thank you.”
Clarion steps forward, brow furrowed, her holy symbol trembling faintly as though sensing something beneath his skin.
Felonious watches with the stillness of a scholar at the edge of revelation.
Silverleaf’s hand rests on her blade — not drawn, but ready.
Ireena’s breath catches.
IREENA: “You’re not Marek?”
Arturi chuckles — a dry, bitter sound that seems to scrape the inside of the wagon.
ARTURI: “No. Not anymore.”
He shifts in the throne, wincing as the bandages pull tight across his ribs.
ARTURI (CONT’D): “Arturi Radanavich. That was my name before I started running.”
His gaze sweeps the party — not pleading, not proud, but searching.
ARTURI (CONT’D): “Before I started searching.”
With trembling fingers he reaches for a flask, unscrews it, and drinks.
The liquid steadies him, but only barely.
Ezmerelda freezes when Arturi says his name. Her eyes narrow.
He leans back, eyes shadowed, voice sinking into something older.
ARTURI (CONT’D): “Since we met at Madame Eva’s camp, I’ve been chasing ghosts.”
A humorless chuckle twists his mouth.
ARTURI (CONT’D): ”Chasing the good doctor.”
The title drips with irony, with old wounds.
ARTURI (CONT’D): “Rudolph van Richten. Monster hunter. Scholar. Saint, if you believe the stories.”
He shakes his head, a slow, pained motion.
ARTURI (CONT’D): “I thought he might hold the secret. To curing what ails me.”
He gestures weakly to his bandaged side — the stains dark, the wrappings tight.
ARTURI (CONT’D): “But I’ve found nothing. Only rumors. And blood.”
Felonious steps closer, the spirit dragon coiling like a question around his shoulders.
FELONIOUS: “What does ail you, Arturi?”
Arturi looks up.
And for a heartbeat — just one — his eyes gleam with something ancient.
Something cursed.
Something that has been waiting for this moment to be spoken aloud.
The treasure wagon falls silent.
The throne gleams like a relic of a forgotten king.
And Arturi Radanavich — once Marek, once fugitive, now something else entirely — sits at the edge of ruin, waiting to see whether the party will pull him back…
or watch him fall.
Scene: Vallaki — Vistani Camp, Treasure Wagon
IThe firelight gutters low, throwing long, trembling shadows across the gold‑inlaid throne and the blood‑stained bandages that bind the man seated upon it.
The air inside the treasure wagon is thick — with dust, with memory, with the weight of a name that has not been spoken in nearly two decades.
Ezmerelda stands in the doorway, framed by mist and lantern‑glow.
She is utterly still.
Her eyes lock onto the man in the throne.
Her breath catches — sharp, involuntary.
EZMERELDA (softly): “Radanavich…”
She steps forward, as though drawn by a thread she cannot cut.
EZMERELDA (CONT’D): “It cannot be.”
Her voice is barely a whisper.
But in the cramped wagon, it carries like a confession.
Arturi lifts his head.
His eyes meet hers — and something ancient passes between them.
Recognition.
Regret.
And the echo of a name that once meant family.
ARTURI: “It is.”
He shifts, wincing as the bandages pull.
Pain flickers across his face — familiar, constant.
ARTURI (CONT’D): “I’ve carried the name in silence. For eighteen years.”
His gaze drifts to the party — Clarion tense, Felonious watchful, Silverleaf poised, Ireena clutching the dimmed Sun Sword — then returns to Ezmerelda.
ARTURI (CONT’D): “And I’ve carried something else.”
He gestures to his side.
To the blood.
To the exhaustion etched into his bones.
ARTURI (CONT’D): “A curse.”
His voice is low.
Measured.
Heavy with the truth he has outrun for too long.
ARTURI (CONT’D): “The undead pursue me. Wherever I go. They find me.”
He closes his eyes, as though bracing against a memory.
ARTURI (CONT’D): “Every night. For eighteen years.”
Clarion steps closer, her expression grim, her holy symbol trembling faintly.
Felonious’s spirit dragon coils tight, its glow dimming to a wary pulse.
Ireena’s knuckles whiten around the Sun Sword’s hilt.
ARTURI (CONT’D): “Luvash and Arrigal have taken on a terrible danger in sheltering me.”
He opens his eyes.
Looks toward the door — toward the camp, the mist, the night that hunts him.
ARTURI (CONT’D): “No matter the outcome of our meeting…”
A long, weary exhale.
ARTURI (CONT’D) : “I must be gone from their kumpani5a before nightfall.”
Ezmerelda does not speak.
Not yet.
She stares at him —
at the man who shares her blood,
her history,
and perhaps her fate.
The wagon creaks.
The fire dims.
And the party stands in the presence of a curse that walks,
a name that lingers,
and a reckoning that can no longer be delayed.
The firelight flickers across the throne’s gold inlay.
Ireena steps forward, her voice gentle, her eyes full of quiet concern.
The mist outside presses against the windows like a living thing.
IREENA: “How did this curse come upon you?”
She glances at Ezmerelda — whose gaze never leaves the wounded man — then back to Arturi.
IREENA (CONT’D): “You don’t seem like a bad person.”
Arturi exhales, a slow, ragged breath.
His eyes drift upward, toward the wagon’s ceiling — toward the memory he has tried to bury.
ARTURI: “A man once vowed… that undead shall take me.”
He chuckles weakly.
It is a sound without joy, a sound that belongs to the grave.
ARTURI (CONT’D): “Although they have not yet succeeded, they have never failed to try.”
The wagon creaks.
Outside, the mist stirs.
Inside, the party listens — silent, solemn.
Arturi coughs, blood flecking the edge of his bandages.
He leans forward, urgency burning through the pain.
ARTURI (CONT’D): “Please.”
He looks at Felonious, then Ezmerelda, then the rest — eyes pleading, voice trembling.
ARTURI (CONT’D): “I must see Dr. Van Richten.”
His voice cracks, the words breaking like brittle glass.
ARTURI (CONT’D): “His life may be in urgent danger. As well as mine.”
Ezmerelda stiffens.
Her eyes narrow — not in disbelief, but in dread.
She knows the weight of those words.
She knows what it means when the undead begin to stir.
And somewhere in the valley, unseen, the shadows answer.
The firelight flickers across Arturi’s bandaged form.
The lanterns burn low, their light trembling across the wagon’s carved sigils and the blood‑dark bandages that bind Arturi’s chest.
The air is thick with incense and the slow ache of memory.
Clarion kneels beside him, her hands gentle but firm, tracing the wounds with practiced care.
Her voice is soft, but resolute — the tone of one who has seen miracles and mourning in equal measure.
CLARION: “If you can tell me more — how the curse fell upon you — I may be able to remove it.”
Arturi exhales, slow and ragged.
His eyes drift upward, searching the ceiling for a star that never rose.
ARTURI: “I don’t know if anyone can.”
He winces as Clarion adjusts the wrappings, then begins — his voice a thread unraveling from the past.
ARTURI (CONT’D): “Twenty years ago, I was seventeen. Awkward. Lonesome. Desperate to belong.”
A bitter chuckle escapes him — dry, hollow.
ARTURI (CONT’D): “So when my cousins invited me on a “hunting trip,” I said yes. Gratefully.”
Clarion pauses, sensing the weight behind his words.
The others listen — silent, solemn.
ARTURI (CONT’D): “But it wasn’t long before I learned what they were hunting.”
He swallows, the sound harsh in the quiet.
ARTURI (CONT’D): “My aunt — Madame Irene Radanavich — had lost her son, Radu. Gravely wounded by bandits. She took him to a healer.”
His voice tightens, trembling at the edges.
ARTURI (CONT’D): “Dr. Rudolph van Richten.”
Background Music shifts: Fabomusic - Van Richten (The Father)
Ezmerelda stiffens.
Her eyes narrow, but she says nothing.
Not yet.
ARTURI (CONT’D): “Radu died. And Auntie Irene… she wanted Van Richten to feel that same pain.”
He looks down, the firelight catching the hollow of his throat.
ARTURI (CONT’D): “So they took his son. Erasmus. Fourteen years old.”
His voice cracks.
ARTURI (CONT’D): “They sold him. To Baron Metus. A vampire lord.”
Clarion closes her eyes briefly, steadying herself.
Felonious grips his staff tighter.
Ireena looks stricken.
ARTURI (CONT’D) : “I said nothing.”
He looks up, eyes hollow.
ARTURI (CONT’D): “Every time I thought to speak, I saw their jeers. Her glare. So I watched. And I stayed silent.”
Silverleaf mutters something under her breath.
Ezmerelda steps forward, her face unreadable.
ARTURI (CONT’D): “They fled through the Mists. To Barovia. Left the d’Avenirs behind.”
He glances at Ezmerelda, not yet recognizing her.
ARTURI (CONT’D): “Not long after, Van Richten returned. And he was not alone. The Undead came with him. Many.”
The fire dims.
The wagon creaks.
Background Music shifts: Fabomusic - Van Richten (Hunter)
ARTURI (CONT’D): “He said Erasmus had died. Turned. And that he’d killed him himself.”
His voice is barely a whisper.
ARTURI (CONT’D): “Then he released the undead upon us.”
He closes his eyes.
ARTURI (CONT’D): “‘Undead take you as you have taken my son,’ he said. And the Dark Powers, they listened.”
A long silence.
ARTURI (CONT’D): “I hid. In my grandmother’s trunk. Magical. Silent.”
He opens his eyes.
ARTURI (CONT’D): “When I emerged… they were all dead.”
Clarion finishes binding the wound.
Her hands tremble slightly.
ARTURI (CONT’D): “And the curse… it followed me.”
He looks at her.
ARTURI (CONT’D): “Every night. They come. They try.”
A weak smile ghosts across his lips.
ARTURI (CONT’D): “They haven’t succeeded. But they’ve never failed to try.”
He coughs, blood flecking his lips.
ARTURI (CONT’D): “Please. I must see Van Richten.”
He looks at Ezmerelda — still not knowing.
ARTURI (CONT’D): “His life may be in danger. As well as mine.”
The firelight trembles, its glow crawling across the gold‑inlaid throne like a dying heartbeat.
The air inside the wagon is heavy — thick with smoke, silence, and the scent of old sorrow.
Felonious stands near the back, arms folded, his spirit dragon coiled around his shoulders like smoke given thought. He speaks softly, yet the words seem to echo against the wood.
FELONIOUS: “The story you told us at Madame Eva’s fire — the sparrows and the fox.”
Arturi lifts his head. His eyes gleam with weary recognition, the kind that belongs to men who have lived too long with ghosts.
He nods once.
ARTURI: “A symbolic retelling.”
A cough breaks the stillness — wet, rasping, human.
He forces a smile that doesn’t reach his eyes.
ARTURI (CONT’D): “The Radanaviches were the sparrows. Van Richten, the fox.
And the undead… the rats.”
The wagon falls silent.
Even the mist outside seems to pause, listening.
ARTURI (CONT’D): “All stories have a grain of truth within them.”
He smiles faintly — bitter, wistful, the expression of a man who has outlived his own legend.
ARTURI (CONT’D): “This one simply had more than most.”
Ezmerelda watches him, her expression unreadable — a mask carved from restraint and memory.
Clarion bows her head slightly, as if in prayer.
Ireena grips the Sun Sword, its light dim but steady.
And Felonious, scholar of myth and memory, nods once — not in approval, but in understanding.
The tale has been told.
The curse named.
And the sparrow, wounded but unbroken, sits upon a throne of gold and ash —
waiting to see if the fox will return,
and whether the rats will follow.
CUT TO:
Scene: Vallaki — Vistani Camp, Just Outside the Treasure Wagon
EXT. CAMP PERIMETER — NIGHT
Background Music shifts: Fabomusic - Ezmerelda
Ezmerelda bursts from the treasure wagon, fists clenched, shoulders rigid.
Her boots grind against the gravel, each step a declaration.
She does not look back.
Behind her, Felonious moves to follow — but Greegan lifts a hand, quiet and steady.
A single gesture, and the scholar halts. Felonious nods, retreating into shadow.
Greegan steps forward instead, his presence soft as a whisper.
The mist coils around her boots as she walks, each step sharp, deliberate — not from shock, but from an old wound being torn open again.
She does not storm out because she has learned something new.
She storms out because she has remembered something she has spent years trying not to think about.
Greegan follows at a respectful distance, silent as snowfall.
Ezmerelda stops abruptly.
Her breath shudders.
When she speaks, her voice is low — not trembling with disbelief, but with the fury of a truth she already knew and never wanted spoken aloud.
EZMERELDA: “A man of science. My mentor. The man who spared my parents… and damned himself.”
She closes her eyes.
Not in denial — in pain.
EZMERELDA (CONT’D): “I knew what he did. I knew the story. The vengeance. The curse he unleashed.”
Her jaw tightens.
EZMERELDA (CONT’D): “But hearing it from another mouth… hearing it from someone who lived it… that is different.”
She turns to Greegan, eyes burning — not with tears, but with the weight of a truth she has carried alone.
EZMERELDA (CONT’D): “Rudolph van Richten is a good man. But even good men can break.”
She looks away, into the mist.
EZMERELDA (CONT’D): “And he broke in the worst way.”
Her hands tremble — not from fear, but from the violence of memory.
EZMERELDA (CONT’D): “I told myself it was justice. I told myself it was grief. I told myself it was not my place to judge him.”
A long silence.
The mist swirls.
The camp holds its breath.
EZMERELDA (CONT’D): “But hearing it again… from the lips of someone who survived it… it feels like a blade I thought I’d already learned to live with.”
She exhales — a sound halfway between a sigh and a curse.
EZMERELDA (CONT’D): “Rudolph wouldn’t do it again. But he did it once. And that truth… that truth has teeth.”
Greegan says nothing.
He simply stands beside her — a quiet anchor in a storm she has weathered before.
Ezmerelda stares into the mist, as if expecting it to answer.
But the mist only curls, patient and cold.
Ezmerelda does not deny the truth.
She carries it.
She hates it.
She understands it.
And she fears what it means now that the past has walked into her camp, bleeding and alive.
Scene: Barovia — Road to Vallaki
EXT. FOREST PATH — DUSK
Background Music: Fabomusic - Old Svalich Road
The party walks beneath a canopy of fading light.
The mist is quiet.
The trees listen.
Greegan moves beside Ezmerelda, his steps soft, his voice softer still — a murmur nearly lost to the wind.
GREEGAN: “Maybe we should ask Van Richten. He might remember things differently.”
He glances at her, eyes shadowed with doubt.
GREEGAN (CONT’D): “Though even I wonder if that’s true.”
Ezmerelda does not answer.
But she stays beside him.
And in Barovia, that is its own kind of trust.
Ahead, Ireena walks with Clarion, their silhouettes haloed by the last threads of dusk.
IREENA: “Do you think Van Richten could have done something like that? To Arturi’s family?”
Clarion does not answer at once.
She watches the path.
Then the party.
Then the horizon, where the mist thickens like a warning.
CLARION: “This motley band—”
She gestures to the others — to the wounded, the weary, the stubbornly alive.
CLARION (CONT’D): “They’re my family.”
She turns to Ireena, gaze steady, fierce.
CLARION (CONT’D): “You. Ezmerelda. Arabelle. All of you.”
A breath.
A tightening of her jaw.
CLARION (CONT’D): “If someone hurt any of you— I’d want to burn down their house. With them in it.”
Ireena blinks — not in fear, but in recognition.
The kind that comes from surviving Barovia long enough to understand what love looks like when it’s sharpened into a weapon.
Clarion’s expression softens.
CLARION (CONT’D) “Oh, I’d never do it.”
A faint smile ghosts across her lips.
CLARION (CONT’D): “Because it’s not what my family would want.”
She looks ahead, toward the darkening road.
CLARION (CONT’D) : “But not everyone thinks that way.”
The mist curls around their ankles.
The light fades to embers.
And the road to Vallaki stretches on —
toward truth,
toward reckoning,
and toward the man who may yet hold the key
to the curse that binds them all.
The forest path bleeds gold into gray as dusk settles over Barovia.
The mist lies thin upon the ground, but the silence is heavy — a silence that feels aware.
Birdsong has fled. Even the wind holds its breath.
🌑 EXT. FOREST PATH — DUSK
The party moves beneath the dying canopy, their shadows long and uncertain.
Fleetwood walks beside Arturi, who leans upon a carved walking stick — its wood worn smooth by years and grief.
Color has returned to his cheeks, thanks to Clarion’s care, but his eyes still flicker toward the trees, hunted and hollow.
FLEETWOOD (quietly): “How long does it take them to find you?”
Arturi does not answer at once.
He watches the branches sway, the way a man watches the edge of a blade.
A raven flutters overhead — a black whisper — and vanishes into the mist.
ARTURI: “It depends.”
He gestures vaguely, as though the air itself might remember.
ARTURI (CONT’D): “Sometimes hours. Sometimes minutes.”
A pause.
The sound of his breath, thin and deliberate.
ARTURI (CONT’D): “But they always come.”
Fleetwood narrows his eyes, scanning the treeline.
He doesn’t know what he expects — a ghoul, a wight, a shadow with teeth —
but the forest feels wrong.
Too still.
Too expectant.
ARTURI (CONT’D): “It’s not always the same kind.”
His hand tightens around the walking stick.
ARTURI (CONT’D): “Sometimes it’s a corpse that still remembers its name.
Sometimes it’s something that never had one.”
He glances at Fleetwood, voice low, almost reverent.
ARTURI (CONT’D): “But they all know mine.”
Clarion walks ahead, her mace glowing faintly — a small defiance against the dark.
Ireena watches the shadows, her red hair catching the last light like blood in water.
Ezmerelda says nothing.
Felonious murmurs a ward beneath his breath, the syllables curling like smoke.
The trees whisper.
The mist curls.
And the party walks toward Vallaki —
knowing that somewhere behind them,
or ahead,
or beneath,
the dead are already listening.
Scene: Barovia — Road to Vallaki, Nearing the Town Gates
EXT. FOREST PATH — NIGHTFALL
Background Music: Fabomusic - The Town of Vallaki
The mist thickens as night falls, swallowing the edges of the forest path.
The rebuilt walls of Vallaki rise ahead — half-shrouded in fog and scaffolding, their lanterns flickering like dying stars.
The air hums with quiet tension, the kind that precedes revelation.
Felonious walks beside Ezmerelda, his voice low, careful — the tone of a man who knows that even questions can summon ghosts.
FELONIOUS: “Is there a way to signal him? Van Richten. Let him know we need to meet.”
Ezmerelda doesn’t answer at once.
Her gaze drifts toward the treeline, where the mist coils like thought.
Her jaw tightens.
Then she nods — once, deliberate.
EZMERELDA: “There are ways.”
She reaches into her satchel and draws out a small bundle wrapped in oilcloth.
Within lie relics of memory and trust:
A silver coin, etched with a stylized raven.
A folded scrap of parchment, blank but faintly enchanted.
A vial of graveyard dust, sealed with wax.
EZMERELDA (CONT’D): “He taught me to leave signs. Places only we would think to look.”
Her eyes flick toward Felonious — sharp, haunted, resolute.
EZMERELDA (CONT’D): “If he’s in Vallaki, he’ll check the old places. The bell tower. The stockyard. The crypt beneath St. Andral’s.”
She holds up the coin, its surface catching the lantern glow.
EZMERELDA (CONT’D): “This goes in the mortar of the bell tower’s north wall. If he sees it, he’ll know I’m here. And that it’s urgent”.
Felonious nods, solemn, the scholar’s calm masking unease.
FELONIOUS: “Then let’s make sure he sees it.”
Ezmerelda hesitates — then presses the coin into his hand.
EZMERELDA: “You place it. He’ll know it wasn’t me. That I’m not alone.”
Her gaze turns toward Vallaki, where the fog glows faintly with torchlight.
EZMERELDA (CONT’D): “And that the story’s changed.”
The coin gleams.
And the party walks toward Vallaki —
ready to leave a signal in the stone,
and call forth the man whose past may yet decide their future.
The dusk over Vallaki is the color of old bruises — purple sinking into black.
The town stands half‑rebuilt, half‑ruined, as though caught between breaths.
Scaffolding clings to the Blue Water Inn like ribs around a wounded heart.
The streets are too quiet.
Even the mist seems to listen.
EXT. VALLAKI — DUSK
Felonious walks alone toward the bell tower, his robes trailing behind him — singed, soot‑streaked, smelling faintly of spellfire.
The spirit dragon coils low around his shoulders, a ghost of smoke in the fading light.
Townsfolk watch him from behind shutters, from half‑open doors, from the shadows between broken carts.
They do not speak.
They do not approach.
A mother pulls her child back by the wrist.
A blacksmith lowers his hammer mid‑swing, the metal ringing once before falling silent.
They have heard the rumors:
vampire spawn in the woods
fire in the Vistani camp
the Count’s wrath stirring again
And they do not know if their new burgomistress can protect them from what is coming.
Felonious reaches the bell tower’s north wall.
The stones are cold, damp with mist, older than the town that clings to them.
He kneels.
Brushes away dust and moss.
Finds the old mortar line — the one Ezmerelda told him about, the one only a hunter would know.
He draws out the silver coin etched with the raven.
It gleams faintly, as though remembering the hand that once carried it.
He presses it into the crack.
It fits perfectly.
A signal.
A memory.
A call.
Felonious rises slowly, looking up at the tower — its silhouette stark against the dying sky — then back at the town.
No one meets his eyes.
But they watch.
And they wonder.
The coin gleams faintly in the stone.
The bell tower stands silent.
And somewhere — if the stories are true —
a man named Van Richten will feel the tug of an old promise,
know that the past has returned,
and understand that the reckoning is near.
FADE TO BLACK
End credits play over: Fabomusic - Van Richten (Hunter)